


fall into a hole you couldn't see (the friends on the inside remix)

by arealsword



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Inception Fusion, BAMF Deceit | Janus Sanders, Dream heist, Gen, POV Outsider, Protective Deceit | Janus Sanders, Remix, Spiders, The World's Best Self-Preservation Instinct, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26647444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arealsword/pseuds/arealsword
Summary: There are intruders in Thomas’s head.Janus is not happy, to put it lightly.
Relationships: Deceit | Janus Sanders & Thomas Sanders
Comments: 50
Kudos: 99
Collections: Remix Revival 2020 Madness, TSS Fanworks Collective





	fall into a hole you couldn't see (the friends on the inside remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [parallelmonsoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/parallelmonsoon/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Mind the Gap](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24651499) by [parallelmonsoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/parallelmonsoon/pseuds/parallelmonsoon). 
  * In response to a prompt by [parallelmonsoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/parallelmonsoon/pseuds/parallelmonsoon) in the [remixmadness2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2020) collection. 



> Thanks to droidberg for the beta work! Also, I played fast and loose with the Inception-verse rules here because that's the way the story spun, and - well, you know how it is. 
> 
> Really, this is a remix of the Eldritch Rooms concept as a whole - _excellent_ series, do go [check it out](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1889764).
> 
> Warnings: mind fuckery, bad violent things happening to minor OCs, spiders.

The extraction was sliding along smoother than stockinged feet on a well-polished ballroom floor until the snake man showed up.

...Snake man? There’s probably a better way to refer to him than that, because he looks like a great deal many things, even putting _aside_ the half of his face that looks like it’s been wallpapered over with a zoo giftshop’s fashion section. Kid’s cartoon villain, absurdly dressed Victorian gentleman (even down to the hat and the gloves and the weird half-cape thing draped around his shoulders), and – oh yes, of course – yet another _exact_ duplicate of their target. He’s just walked into the hastily thrown-together library that makes up this level of the dream like he owns the damn place.

“Jesus,” mutters the architect, nervously adjusting her sunglasses. “How many of this guy are we going to bump into today?

They’re sitting closest to the big bay windows that make up the far end of the library. The snake man’s on the other side of the room, and he’s very clearly looking for _someone._ Not the Sanders guy, he’s reading at a table just two away from theirs. Nobody else has looked up, so this is either a glitch of some sort, or something else is going on.

“Probably a narcissist,” is their forger’s hushed opinion. “Right? There’s gotta be something wrong with him.”

“Weirdest narcissist I’ve ever seen,” says Steel, keeping his voice low. They should be professional, really, but they’re right about this – this is _very_ weird, and he can’t help but comment on it. “If he were a _full_ egocentric bastard, all the projections would look exactly like him, too. But it’s only a handful of them.”

“Four so far,” says his second-in-command; she’s apparently been keeping count instead of doing more important things. “There were two on the first level, this guy’s the second one down here. God, look at his face. If this a self-absorption thing, then Sanders has some serious self-image problems.”

“Do they feel self-aware to you?” the architect wonders. “Like, they interacted with us more than any projections I’ve ever met. They actually instigated conversation with us, and I swear that one with the glasses and the tie was starting to catch on before we dropped off to this level.”

“That’s Steph’s problem, though,” says the forger. “Besides, this bloke’s subconscious is pretty much the tamest one we’ve been in since – since we had to hack a six-year-old’s, remember that? I don’t think old glasses-and-tie up there’s going to do anything worse than lecture angrily at her.”

The architect huffs. “You say that _now._ Wait until his weird sexy glasses clone pulls out a gun or something on her.”

“All of you, shut up,” Steel hisses, kicking the architect under the table. “He’s looking at us.”

Everyone ducks their heads and fakes extreme interest in the identical copies of the extremely fake book they’re all pretending to read. 

“Sanders?” the forger asks, tapping a blurry, unreadable passage from the middle of the book with feigned fascination.

“No,” says Steel. “That clone of his.”

Snake Guy’s mismatched eyes are travelling across everyone in the library as he strolls across the room in a smooth, nonchalant manner that’s probably calculatedly laid-back. (No, wait, what is Steel saying; projections can’t _calculate_ or _plan,_ they’re purely reactive. This is probably just an overblown personality quirk overlaid on him, nothing more.) And is it his imagination or is that unsettling gaze of his lingering on them just a few seconds too long?

But no, he’s not paying attention to them anymore. He’s walking past them, and he’s not even sparing them a second glance. They don’t need to pull a hasty evacuation. They’re fine. Everybody lets out silent sighs of relief, and slumps a little. Everybody except Steel, because apparently he’s the only damn professional here.

“Fuck _me,_ ” exclaims his second-in-command abruptly under her breath. “He’s going for Sanders.”

“He’s _what?_ ” The architect nearly drops her book, and scrambles to pick it up. “Is that allowed?”

Apparently so. Snake-clone sits down across from Sanders and Sanders looks up from his book. He looks puzzled for a few seconds, but then recognition glints in his eyes and he breaks out into a wide smile. He says something cheerful but inaudible. Snake-clone smiles a smile that’s just on the edge of being a smirk, and replies in kind – equally inaudible.

“Dream logic?” his second-in-command wonders, leaning in close. “Or do you think he actually knows this guy?”

“Maybe it’s someone he knows in real life?” the architect offers. “You know, a subconsciously generated version of them, drawn from memories.

“Someone he knows in real life who happens to look _exactly_ like him and also have fucking scales all over their face, _sure,_ ” the forger says. “My bet’s on weird, wildly kinky fantasy. Narcissist, I’m telling you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Steel growls. “We just need to get Sanders alone, and keep away from the projections, and get the hell out of here. We can’t be that far out from the kick, even on this level, and we’ve got to get the info out of him somehow.”

It wasn’t supposed to be a hard job. It was _supposed_ to be one of those honey-sweet, oil-slick in-and-outs, a quick nab of information from a regular guy who’s probably never even _thought_ about having to protect his dreams from intruders, let alone taking any steps do actually do so. The plan was to hop into the first layer of Sanders’s dreaming subconscious during a long plane ride, get the script details from the inside of his brain, and get the hell out of dodge before he even noticed they were there.

But right now they’re three layers deep, and every time they think they’re getting close to actually _interacting_ with the Sanders guy, he’s whisked away by another one of these goddamn clone-projections of his to _god_ knows where. It shouldn’t be possible for someone to neatly avoid Steel and his team in the confines of what the architect (quite reliably) informs him is a very enclosed dream. But somehow he’s managing it, even though Steel could have sworn blind that Sanders _doesn’t have any dream training._

They can’t go any deeper than this without getting into some _extremely_ risky territory, and that’s something that Steel doesn’t want to chance. Especially not for a relatively low-paying heist for a goddamn audition script. So, it’s this level or nothing.

All they have to do is get Sanders alone. Just for a few seconds; that’s all they need.

He’s trying to figure out what their next move here should be when the architect throws her book down properly this time, and scrambles frantically to her feet, causing several projections around her to turn and look, staring unnervingly.

“What are you _doing?_ ” his second-in-command demands, reaching to grab her arm.

“They’re leaving!” the architect snaps back, gesturing wildly, and indeed they are. Sanders and his identical snake-clone are heading towards a door that definitely hadn’t been there only a few seconds before, and almost certainly wasn’t one the carefully-plotted map the architect had shown all of them only a few days ago. “And they’re messing with my design!”

Steel is on his feet too. So much for subtlety. “Jesus Christ motherfuck god _damn_ it all. Okay, we’re going Mister Charles. I’m taking point, everybody else make themselves scarce.”

Assorted nods, and they scatter, and Steel is taking long striding steps towards Sanders and the creepy self-aware projection thing that’s accompanying him. Fast, but not fast enough that all the other projections start to turn on him. He tries to remember the target’s first name. Timothy? No – Thomas. Thomas, that’s it. “Thomas!” he hisses, urgent but _carefully_ not too panicked. For this to work, he’s got to sound professional. “Thomas, stop!”

Sanders does stop – and so does the snake man. They both turn to look at him. Sanders looks mildly puzzled, but the snake man looks downright _hostile._ He’s not happy to see Steel in the least.

“Hello...?” Sanders says. “We were just going to, uh – ”

“Lunch,” supplies the snake man. He’s not _glaring,_ precisely, but there’s a steel to his gaze that is _absolutely_ radiating fury. Like a broken furnace. His tone bleeds blatant insincerity. “And, oh, I _am_ sorry, Mister Whoever-You’re-Meant-To-Be, but I only have a very limited amount of time to enjoy Thomas’s company today. We really don’t have time to talk; farewell, good _day –_ come on, Thomas, we’re leaving.”

“Janus!” exclaims Sanders, apparently horrified. “ _Apologize._ He didn’t do anything – ”

“Are you quite sure about that?” Janus – apparently – shoots back, and loops an arm neatly through Sanders’s own. “We. Are. Leaving. Out of the door with you; let’s go.”

And with that, they’re heading away from him – which means it’s time to act. The Mister Charles gambit wasn’t designed for this, but it’s not like Steel has very many other options.

“Thomas, you’re dreaming,” says Steel briskly. “This is a dream. Do you understand me? _None of this is real._ ”

Sanders stumbles, pulling the two of them to a halt. The snake-man attempts to tug him onwards, but Sanders pulls away from him and looks over at Steel with wide eyes. “What? What are you –”

“Don’t panic,” Steel says. “It’s _essential_ that you don’t panic. Just listen to me, and step away from the man next to you, and everything will be all right?”

“Oh,” says the snake-man, turning ever-so-slowly to face him. “Oh, very clever. _Do_ go on, I can’t wait to hear where you’re going with this.”

“My name is Mister Charles,” says Steel, ignoring him and addressing Sanders directly. “My job is to protect you from any attempt to access your mind through your dreams.”

Sanders is frowning, but at least he’s not running away. And he’s resisting his companion’s repeated attempts to tug him through the door only inches away, so that’s a definite bonus. “Access... my mind? Like – telepathy?”

“No. Well – yes, let’s go with that, it’s close enough. Thomas, you currently possess some knowledge that a bunch of exceptionally unpleasant people are very determined to get their hands on. And you have the knowledge to be able to avoid them, even if you aren’t consciously aware of it.” He taps his own chest. “That’s me. I’m your training – I’m here to help you.” He scowls, and it’s barely faked. “And also here to tell you that the person right next to you is probably one of those unpleasant people I just mentioned.”

“ _Me?_ ” One of the snake-man’s gloved hands rises swiftly and smoothly to his chest. “My goodness. What an accusation. I’m shocked and astonished. Thomas, aren’t you shocked and astonished? ”

“I,” says Steel to Sanders, trying to stay resolute in the face of a complication which has literally _never_ been a problem, not in all the twenty years he’s been doing this, “am a projection of your subconscious. I’m here in your head – here to protect you, in the case that extractors pull you into a dream. And it’s becoming increasingly obvious that that’s exactly what’s happened here.”

Sanders visibly takes a moment to process. “This is a lot,” he says. “And – I’m not entirely sure if I believe you.”

Steel hesitates, and then takes a calculated risk. “Don’t you think it’s _slightly_ strange that this friend of yours – Janus, was it? – looks almost identical to you?”

“Um,” says Sanders. He blinks. “No?”

“... _No?_ ”

“Why would it be?” Sanders says, blankly. “I mean... he’s _Janus._ I think it’d be stranger if he _didn’t_ look like me, right?”

It’s at this point that the snake-man starts laughing. And after a moment, he starts clapping as well – slow and steady, mocking and _tangibly_ insincere. “Oh, well done, you; _very_ well done. What a gambit! How very clever of you! I’m sure it would have worked well if you had picked _literally anyone but me to play it with_.”

Steel is starting to get a little fed up with this guy. Scratch that, he’s _very_ fed up and more than a little pissed off. He doesn’t want to have to deal with some weird cryptic snake man, three levels deep. He wants the script, he wants his payment, and he wants to go back to his hotel room to take whatever cocktail of drugs he can get into himself so he can sleep dreamlessly for a solid twelve hours or so.

He grits his teeth and addresses this Janus person properly for the first time. “Look, who even _are_ you? You’re not meant to be here, whoever you are.”

“Your name is Mister Charles, and you’re here to protect Thomas?” His smile extends all the way up one cheek, the slit crooking and curling and coming to end up at his ear. “Now, that’s an interesting claim. I really could have sworn that was _my_ job!"

 _Oh shit,_ Steel thinks, panic shooting through him, because that isn’t right, the Mister Charles thing isn’t supposed to _actually be real_. “Interesting ploy,” he says. “I especially enjoy the bit where you claim you’re the one who’s in control here; it’s almost funny.”

“Oh, it’s cute how you think you’re anything _close_ to being in control,” the snake-man says with a smile that doesn’t grace his eyes in the least, and reaches out to take Sanders’s hand.

The moment he does, every projection in sight – and there are _hundreds_ in this library – snaps their heads around to look. Not at Sanders, not at the snake-man. Directly at Steel. And is it just his imagination, or are their gazes a million times more intense than any projection he’s ever dealt with. Eyes on him, from every angle, the pressure crushing into him like a sentient tsunami.

“Oh, they can’t see us,” the snake-man says, and his smile widens. “Perks of being the literal inside man.”

“Uh – to be clear,” Sanders says. “This... _is_ a dream; this guy’s the actual intruder in my head, and he just tried to convince me that you were out to get me?”

“Got it three-in-three; you’re such a quick study these days,” the snake-man practically purrs. “Any more questions?”

“Um. Well.” Sanders looks down at their intertwined hands, and then up again. “Am I actually in danger, and how do I get him out of here?”

“You’re safe,” says the snake-man.

Sanders’ face reads ‘unconvinced’ all over. “Try again.”

“You’re perfectly safe,” he reiterates, “as long as you’re with me.”

From two rows of shelves over, he hears the forger scream; a pure, animalistic terror sort of scream, quickly followed by, “What the fuck – who _are-_?” – and a wild, horrible cackle of pure delight that sends prickles of crawling discomfort all down his back.

Sanders winces visibly, and makes as if to pull away, but the snake-man tightens his grip firmly. “Remus has this handled; this is his room now.”

“But – ”

“They’re here to hurt you, remember?”

“I’m not,” Steel says, summoning every ounce of earnestness deep within him, and letting it shine out of his face. “I promise you, I’m not. I don’t know who they are, but Thomas – I’m here to help. Just let me – ”

“Ah-ah-ah- _ah_ , how about you _don’t_ try to lie to the biggest liar currently occupying Thomas’s brainspace – and better yet, how about you, hm, how would a less dignified conceptual entity put it? – fuck off, forever?”

“Why are you so _angry?_ ” he hears Sanders mutter, and he also hears the muttered reply – “There are _intruders in your head_ , I think I’m entitled to be angry on our behalf – ” and then both of them are running. Sanders and the snake-projection leap through the door together, and Steel is already sprinting after them, even as it begins to swing shut of its own accord. He gets his foot into the doorway and the door slams painfully on it, sending a jolt of agony all up his leg – but it’s still just-a-crack open, and that’s enough for him to dig his fingers around the edge and throw it open as well, and fling himself through just as the projections behind him begin to converge.

He can still hear the forger screaming, and then the architect yelling, “No! No, _stop,_ this was _my_ design – ”

Steel chances a glance over his shoulder just before slamming the door shut, and sees that the library has blurred and streaked outwards into a rainbow of incomprehensible nonsense, the projections scattered and evershifting concepts with horrible animalistic faces and dripping, melting skin.

He slams the door shut, because he honestly couldn’t give a fuck about these people. They’re working together, but that’s it – if they’re trapped in limbo forever, so be it. He knows the cue for the kick, and he knows how to snap himself up through the levels alone, and as long as Steph and the demolitionist stick to their cues, at least _he’ll_ be getting out alive and conscious today.

He turns, and sees – well. It takes a moment for his eyes to focus and actually interpret what they’re look at, but it looks an awful lot like an abandoned, stuffed full-to-bursting attic. Sanders and the snake-man are nowhere in sight, but that’s not entirely surprising. It seems like it would be amazingly easy to get lost in forever.

“Scariest thing you can remember,” he hears, drifting to his ears from several metres away from him – or is it? Space seems malleable, here. The piles of junk piled upwards in every direction don’t have any real depth to them, although they simultaneously look horribly bottomless. “No, don’t open your eyes, don’t think too hard about it – scariest thing you can remember, Thomas, come on.”

Steel instinctively shuts his eyes against the warm sunshine-sweet light that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. If Sanders is being told that opening his eyes is a bad idea, it only follows that he should try following the same advice.

“We’re in Patton’s room, aren’t we,” he hears Sanders say. Not a question. He has no idea who this _Patton_ is, but the fact that they’re in his room seems significant enough.

“Look at _you_ ; making deductions left, right and centre. Yes – I did check with him, before you ask, and he was amenable enough when I explained the situation. Although I don’t suppose he quite grasped the full ramifications of what I had in mind...”

“Wait, so, we’re... weaponizing Patton’s room?”

“That’s the plan. As much as I’d love to believe that trapping the majority of those intruders in the twins’ room took care of them, I have my doubts. Best to be prepared.”

Steel listens hard and reaches out to steady himself against the nearest object but as he touches something flat and boxy he gets a surge of pure _joy_ that’s so tangible and real that it hurts him over and over and over again. It’s enough to make him stagger backwards and yearn for more and resolve to _not touch anything in this room, ever._

He stops doubting himself and just follows the sound of their voices. They’re not too far away, not if he just focuses and concentrates. One foot in front of the other. If he believes hard enough in himself he won’t crash into a thing. That’s how it usually works, anyway.

“That all seems kind of – well, cruel. Considering.”

“Do you really want to debate the ethics of this? They’re in your mind. It’s possibly _the_ most invasive thing you can possibly do to anyone, and it’s not as if we’re really going to kill them.”

“Isn’t it, like – if you die in the dream, you die in real life...?”

“Not here,” says the snake-man, which – well, that’s a lie. Sanders’s subconscious is lying to him about the consequences of dying, three levels deep, and Steel isn’t sure if he actually _knows_ how wrong he is. “Now, once more – scariest thing you can remember. Nice and quick, if you please.”

A pause and a sigh, and Steel can feel it, he’s nearly there, he’s nearly close to them; if he can just shoot this projection and – he doesn’t know what comes next. They definitely can’t go deeper.

Oh well, he’s never been the best at plotting and planning; that’s more Steph’s department. He’ll burn that bridge when he gets to it. Step one, get rid of the Janus-projection, step two, grab Sanders, step three, do whatever it takes to get out of here alive and sane.

“The spider eggsac,” says Sanders, audibly reluctant. “In the backyard. Remember? I was – ”

“Five years old, yes – _dreadful_ choice, I think it’ll do just nicely. Horribly traumatizing – I can’t imagine Patton would have wanted to keep it anywhere particularly prominent. Hold on for just a moment, will you? I’m not going anywhere, I just need to find it.”

“Yeah,” says Sanders. “I know.”

Steel takes a risk and opens his eyes, and sees that Sanders is standing, eyes closed and arms crossed, in the middle of a particularly stacked-and-cramped nook of this sprawling junk-filled place. The snake-man is knelt down a short distance away, digging his gloved fingers into the cracks of the floorboard. Had this place had floorboards before just a second ago? He swears he can remember them, but there’s a faint niggling sense of doubt there that he can’t quite shake.

As he processes this, he sees that the snake man is straightening up. He’s now holding a small cottony-white object very carefully, pinched between two gloved fingers. His gaze locks onto Steel’s, quite firmly, and he breaks out into a wicked grin and says, “There you are. Catch!”

And it’s instinctive reflex for him to reach up and try to snatch the object out of the air as it comes sailing towards him – although he doesn’t quite have the reflex to _drop it,_ before it bursts open, far larger than it should be in his hands. A wave of chittering, skittering shiny-black spiders that pour from it, flowing up his arms and into his sleeves and out to envelop his neck, and with it comes a memory of pure, senseless child-like terror that makes him want to scream and sob until his lungs are dry and ragged and call out for a mother who’s long, long gone.

Distantly, he hears an, “And off we go!” and it tugs at enough of his sense and logic to remind him what he’s doing. To drag himself out of the residual terror of a child’s careless curiosity-fuelled mistake, to drop the memory of a spider’s eggsac to the ground, and to stagger off in the direction of running footsteps, fuming with embarrassment (falling for something this obvious? They obviously knew he was there from the start) and grasping angrily outwards. A bound around the corner, a leap to the side, and he catches onto the hem of Sanders’s t-shirt just as the snake-man throws open a door to nowhere with a great outwards sweep of his arm, and they all tumble through like dominoes, one after the other.

And then it all gets far too confusing and abstract for Steel’s taste.

He doesn’t let go of Sanders’s shirt, but it’s like they’re weightless and weighed down at all the same time before they crash directly into a place that’s all hard edges. A flash of blinding light and no shadows that scorches at his eyes like a shot of pure rationality to the brain – (“No, _no;_ if we let him off here there’s no point to any of this. Let’s go to – oh no – ”)

Door slams open, door closes. Two seconds in the next place that feel stretched out to their maximum potential, and it feels like falling in motion forever – (“We can’t let him into Virgil’s room, can we?” “No. No, we can’t. Thomas do you trust me?”)

A moment of hesitation – 

(“Yes. Yes, of course.”

“Deep breath, then.”)

And then Steel is in the most normal room that they’ve been through so far. A staircase leading upwards just to his left, some couches, a television, blinds pulled down to cover windows shining faintly with concealed sunlight. Sanders is standing in front of him, and the snake-man is nowhere to be seen.

“Thomas,” says Steel, intending to at least _try_ to salvage the situation, now that he’s got him on his own – but the words warp and spiral from his mouth like spun silk twisting against itself, and every possible meaning of his words, spoken and unspoken and thought and considered and buried, fans outwards to pool all around him.

And he thinks, _this isn’t right,_ and that fractals out into a splintering of shatterthoughts, glittering and reflecting at and against each other like crushed false diamonds.

“Gotcha,” says Sanders, or maybe it’s more like _I’m sorry_ or _what’s happening, I don’t understand?_ or _I’m looking forward to forgetting this entirely the moment I’m gone from here._ He’s (grinning) (weeping) (staring) (shuddering), and he –

He turns like a key in a lock, and the room clicks shut around him.

Steel doesn’t understand what’s going on (understands everything in perfect clarity) (never understood anything at all), but he thinks he thinks he can see Sanders, already (crumpling into a dead faint) (falling to his knees) (leaning back against the wall and retching uncontrollably) (reaching a hand upwards) as he calls out a name that’s so layered and meaningful in every conceivable sense that it’s completely impossible (unthinkable) (horrifyingly simple) to understand.

Steel is frozen in place in unthinking animal terror (unspooling at the seams being picked apart with a needle) (raving and screaming and thrashing on the ground) (dashing across the room to tackle Sanders to the ground) but either/or/and he has just enough time to think, _trap, it’s a trap,_ when a hand (or two) (or four) (or six) (or a cane) (or a staff) comes from above (below) (to the side) (out of impossibility) and seizes onto Sanders’s own, and a million possible events happen at once, the conclusion of which is inevitably that Sanders is _gone_ (was never there) (was always here) (and always will be) –

And now the room is not a room is a room was never a room, and all sense and rationality are gone and it’s converging around him. He fumbles for a gun that is not a gun and tries to point it at his head on the offchance that the kick will happen just when he needs it, but it’s not his head anymore and he can’t remember if the hand that holds his not-gun is his hand or not.

“A word to the wise, my dear Mister Charles,” says Janus, who is the most real thing left in the world anymore – he fits into this room like a nesting doll, layers upon layers centring all on him. “The next time you try to invade someone’s head for any reason; any reason at all – _do_ try to dream a little bigger. Hitting you with a nuclear warhead when you came armed with a slingshot seems more than a little unfair – but needs must, I suppose.”

\- and then Janus is gone like the ghost of a white lie, and Steel reaches event horizon and it all closes in around him, and he is crushed like a butterfly’s wing –

– and the rest is eternity and limbo both.


End file.
